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How does it feel to start a post with a promise? It may sound not as familiar as it sounds to you than to me. I have said this to myself ever since forever. I want to be a regular blogger who can update consistently; be it monthly, weekly or even better, daily. I used to make a thorough plan on how to do that. I tried to make my blog an inspirational place for people who drop by. The dreams remain the same, and I’m also still more or less, the same. The same lazy ass person who do anything but accomplishing her dreams. But, okay. I’m writing this here not just to complain and continuing on self-hate speech. I really want to change, to make this blog alive again. But, before anything, I need to write this mandatory post. At least, I need to keep the routines going, right?

May I start?

After a year of running away from this blog, I’m going to post my dramas list of 2015 (how 2000 and late). Seems like on this year, I tried to keep up with the trends by watching pretty recent dramas, as far as 2012 and even on the same year as it aired; 2015. My favorite drama of the year is Twenty Again. It was a clean story with clean ending. Nothing goes too fast or too slow, and the main character is progressing really nicely. The other favorites are Risou no Musuko, N no Tameni and Angry Mom! Unfortunately I didn’t write any reviews out of these. Oh, I finally got to watch the famous Chun SeonYi drama, it was indeed, as worth as it sounds, a legendary and full-of-meme kind of drama; my faves too.

I’m just gonna drop a post and run away again. News flash: It’s May 2016. On a positive note, seeing this list of books, I actually achieved my target. I said I wanted to read more non-fiction books, and I did just that! There are nine out of thirty non-fiction books on my list. About the number, again, I didn’t make it to 50, but to maintain the same amount of book is actually an achievement in itself. Before you accuse me of excusing myself, I will tell you why. 2015 is quite a feat, I finally graduated and have a lot of free time, but the pressure of getting on the next path could be really distractive. There were times when I didn’t feel like doing anything, then the guilty feeling from wasting time would force me to be productive, but soon the exhaustion of being rejected would lose my hope and I’d go back on being a certified couch potato. This kept going on a circle until I managed to break it down on December (kind of). Anyway, 2015 was not all bad, I experienced and did many things too.

As for this year, I have a quite ambitious plan; to read 100 books and write each of the reports. You may wonder, how far I have come with this plan, knowing that it’s already in the middle of the year. That, will be answered in the Books List tab as usual, lol.

“We long for Saturdays because that means books. We’re like a bunch of little kids with present. Ordinary people don’t know how much books can mean to someone who’s cooped up. Our only diversions are reading, studying and listening to the radio”.

I didn’t take this from my old reports, it’s going to be very new as I just finished this book yesterday. This book needs a shoutout! Just like how it’s stated in the back cover, this is great for parents, teachers, day care or homeschooling practitioners and government. In general, those who have interest in education just like me!

It tells about the education system in Japan, specifically in daycare, preschool-kindergarten, and elementary school. Coming from the experience of Indonesian mothers who live in Japan, this is quite personal, which makes this even more enjoyable.

cr: Kalengkentang

I’ve always been a fan of Japan Culture (as you can see here). And when I read this book, actually I’m already familiar to how the schools are. The rough pictures from their entertainment products; movies, dramas, and animation. So, this book gives a deeper insight to my knowledge. The information here are pretty detailed and systematic. From the kinds of formal education for children in Japan to the all activities they do at school. Pictures also provided as an examples to make it clearer. There is even the description of how is teacher as a profession perceived in Japan. Turns out, teacher is a prestigious job which many people in Japan want to be. Japan takes children as a very precious being who would be the future of Japan so education is number one priority. That’s why, people who dedicate their time and effort to educate them will be highly respected.

‘Japan really think of education seriously, the system is very well thought of’. This thought kept coming when I read this book. Because, every aspects needed to make children learn and become a proper human-being is taken care of. They emphasize the importance of learning-by-doing and the development of characters not study for the sake of tests only. And what makes me really envious of them is the government plays a huge role in this. All the public schools there could possibly have the same standard as some of private schools in Indonesia. From the facilities to the curriculum. So, Japan citizen prefer to put their kids in public school with no worries. Since private school is also much more expensive.

There are many lessons we can take even for us, adults. The principles thought there such as to respect people (greet people, queuing), be responsible (of their own trashes and own belongings), be productive (many activities at school, even when in summer breaks schools encourage students and family to do something together), be knowledgeable (reading is a habit), and to converse traditional culture. Imagine all this are thought at school and not only that but the society is embracing the same values as well. In this book, the authors also give example on how to apply the principles to your children. Surely not everything can be easily applied, since there is difference in culture and habit. As much as we want our children to learn and adapt the principles, the society may have different values. So, it wouldn’t be as easy. The authors itself told how hard it is to keep the values learned from Japan’s school once their children come back to Indonesia.

Besides the lessons learned, it actually inspired me to build a school using the same system. As well made me wonder is there any school in Indonesia who has applied this system? (I’m hoping there is, lol). All in all, I like this book and it’s truly a suitable book for those mentioned above. If the government can’t be relied on, let’s just do it from ourselves.

I can’t believe it’s almost the end of the year and I’ve only got three posts on 2015. As of now, I will try my best to post as many as possible before the year changes. This time I publish a movie review that has been in the dungeon for two years, lol. I don’t know why I wrote this post but never finish it. For those who don’t really take time to watch dramas, I present to you a movie review. To be exact, a Japanese movie: Kimi ni Todoke.

Kimi ni todoke: The poster

This is not a recent movie (2010) and I watched this long ago, probably 2011? I remember this movie as something sweet, light and feel-good, the kind where you don’t really have to think about it. But I really like it, and here’s why. Let’s start from the story.

Kuronuma Sawako (Tabe Mikako) is known as Sadako in her school, rumor has it those who look her in the eyes for three seconds would be cursed. In fact, she is just a shy and quiet girl who happens to have Sadako-like long hair. In contrast to her personality, there we have the popular guy, Kazehaya Shota (Miura Haruma). He is a bright and attractive person (like any popular guy in manga, is really good in everything, lol). Sawako admires him too, and things about to change when on one fine day Kazehaya talks to her.

Really, Sawako?

Kimi ni Todoke translated as From Me to You, the famous tagline would be “When will it reach you? My feelings for you”. It’s pointing to Kazehaya’s feelings toward Sawako who oblivious to that fact. But if we look closer, it’s actually more about relationships in general, between friends, family and someone you like. Sawako has hard time expressing her feelings so that’s why the rumors keep going and she stays lonely until Kazehaya comes to the picture. Even for those who have no problems expressing, sometimes they don’t really have the guts to say things to other people, so I think that’s the main message of this movie. To just say it. Kazehaya phrased it better:

“A pass won’t be received well by others if you don’t seriously think for it to reach them” – Kazehaya Shota

This is such a simple story, it could be typical (or is it typical? What is typical anyway? lol). A popular guy in love with the ordinary-to-outcast girl. But, what I really like about it is the characters, especially the girl lead, Sawako. She’s not whiny, she’s honest and straightforward. She’s a delicate, naive and very kind person but actually really strong. Not the strong kind like Tsukushi in Hana Yori Dango or Hina in Pen-bro, but still strong. I mean, she endured all those years being called Sadako, yet she feels bad that she can’t summon ghosts when people expected her to be (since she’s Sadako) in the courage test. The development of her character is so nice to see. Usually, I can’t stand seeing a mediocre female protagonist got the best guy at school, but in Kimi ni todoke, I feel like the guy is actually the lucky one for getting Sawako, lol. She’s so precious.

Kazehaya is by no means bad, but we don’t really need many explanations about his character. He is popular since he’s handsome, smart, athletic and nice with everyone. A really likable person you may say. Him and Sawako had me saying cute over and over again.

Friendship parts the movie bring actually tug my heart string more than the love lines. I can feel the genuine feelings between Sawako and her new-found friends, it actually teared me up in some scenes. I found the truth in this saying so much. most of the times it just happens, being a classmate then friend to best friend.

Chizu – Sawako – Ayane

“Being friends, even before you noticed, it’s happened. We become friends already” – Yoshida Chizuru.

Taken from a popular manga, there’d be differences and comparison. But I think they did a good job considering I can still get the message and feeling the warmth of this story. How feel-good the movie is how there’s no really bad person. This is totally a happy ending kind of movie where everybody turns to be a better person at the end of the day. Everything happens quite fast too, no unnecessary drama included. With that I concluded all the reasons why I love Kimi ni todoke :).

The other next post is here! It has more number than last year, with the equal amount of Japanese and Korean dramas. But I gotta admit that almost half of it comes from drama special, which usually has less than five episodes (just one even) so I could take more titles. Anyhow it’s still called drama so I didn’t lie! :O I can’t believe that those dramas below was watched in 2014, it feels like ages go.

So, last year I found some dramas that become my favorites, the number one spot is Itazura na Kiss: Love in Tokyo! ❤ I was obsessed with it that I watched it twice in a row, even once more while I was doing assignments. The other favorites are I Hear Your Voice (packaged with the soundtracks), Nobuta wo Produce, Hana Kimi, Rich Man Poor Woman, Soratobu Kohoushitsu and Misaeng. Wow I thought there’ll be only three haha. The rest are fine too though. What’s cool is I’ve made a drama review from this list! A little progress always welcome. And I finally watched top and popular old dramas, like Hana Kimi (I watched the remake), Nobuta wo Produce, and Kurosagi. I agree that those are all-time favorite kind of dramas. For this year I only hope that I can still watch them in my leisure times, not specific number (like ever lol), oh I need to watch Itazura na Kiss 2! I’m holding back since it’s not yet completed. I’ll probably try to watch popular Kdramas or just follow my mood as usual~

This is one of the next posts that I said earlier. A degradation from last year. by half. Sometimes I’m tired of making target since I’ve failed them most of the times. But yeah my target this yeaaar (lol) is to read more, probably still chasing the 50 books target. And what’s new is to read more facts than fictions book. For example, maybe biography or knowledge books (like encyclopedia, haha noo, wait, it’s okay too actually). In this year adventure, I found a new place to get books, which is my own campus’ library lol. I usually just read there, but I just knew that there are more fiction books that can be borrowed. I managed to take out four books out there, yay! And I’m glad that I still can see my favorite author on the list, which brings to my hope that she’ll stay productive and be on my 2015 book list